Much more about the Nigro plan for downtown Troy

As we reported in this morning’s newspaper, the team led by the Nigro Cos. has been selected to redevelop the former City Hall site in Troy. A very happy Mayor Harry Tutunjian made the announcement at a press conference this morning.

Here are additional details (and more renderings way down at the end of the post):

The project is actually two buildings divided by a piazza that extends Broadway to the Hudson.

The plan by Columbia Development came in second place, while the plan by Judge Development was ranked third by the committee overseeing the selection.

The Richman Group is a major, major piece of this project and a big reason why it was selected. They’re an experienced property and apartment developer out of Greenwich, Conn., and they seem to have the ability to get this project paid for and under construction. They also bring some new construction blood, so to speak, to the Capital Region.

That said, Richman does not have financing in place to start construction. “Not yet,” said Christopher Cirillo, a vice president at Richman. “But we wouldn’t be doing it if we didn’t think we could find ways to finance the project.” That’s Chris in the photo at right, by the way.

The plan, which is still preliminary, calls for 106 apartments, a mix of one- and two-bedrooms. Rents are still to be determined, though Cirillo mentioned that Richman might still consider condos there.

Richman is really going to lead the way on the residential side of the project, while Nigro, with loads of plaza-building experience, is heading up efforts to find retail and restaurant tenants for the lower floors.

Neither Richman nor Tutunjian thought there’d be any difficulty in actually renting the apartments. “Nothing like this exists in the Capital District,” Tutunjian said. “We’ll be the first to have it, and people will be lining up to get an apartment there. I might be one of them.”

I’m told that back in the day, Broadway met the river. So this project is actually a return to the historical norm.

For what it’s worth, Tutunjian received $4,200 in campaign contributions from sources with ties to Nigro Cos. from 2006 to 2008, according to the state Board of Elections.

While John Nigro historically had a strong relationship with Joseph Bruno, Richard Richman, chairman of The Richman Group, is a major Democratic fundraiser. He even hosted an “intimate evening” with Barack Obama at his Greenwich home last fall. Does he know George Soros, the majority owner of Dinosaur Bar-B-Que?

Cirillo said Richman will own the land and the site. The city, therefore, still has to negotiate with the company to transfer ownership.

Cirillo expects that construction will begin next year. As noted by Ike in the comments section, the city had said there would be no gap between the demolition of the existing building and the start of construction. That no longer appears to be the case, unless demo is going to proceed very, very slowly.

Both Tutunjian and Cirillo noted that the project still needs to be reviewed by the planning board, and there will be public hearings. “There’s obviously a lot of tweaking and refinement that still needs to be done,” Cirillo said.

The new buildings are said to complement the Rice and Cannon buildings in height, construction and sidewalk frontage.

Judge Development, in a statement, said: “While we are disappointed that our proposal was not selected, we are pleased that the city has taken a step toward tangible progress in Downtown Troy.”

Check out the third rendering below. Looks like some of the apartments will have floor-to-ceiling windows and sweet views. (Renderings by Troy City Center LLC)

I do love the plan, especially the way it extends Broadway to the river. HOWEVER, I fear dejavu all over again,when I read there is no financing in place yet. That was the same situation that gave us “The Hole” for years back in the 70’s. Plenty of money from the state/feds to tear down but not a nickle for building. I sure hope this situation fares better.

While I really like the extending of Broadway, the building is a hideous, uninspired brick box that is the epitome of cheap, lazy non-design.. just gross.. it is possible to blend modern with historical, but apparently that was not the objective.. one day hopefully..

Not sure anyone here has called it a failure just yet… This is Troy, people are just apprehensive. It’s a big project and while no one wants to see an empty hole it’s also true that we (the taxpayers) don’t want to get the raw end of the deal when it comes to construction.

How can the Troy taxpayers get the raw end of this deal? Non-taxable property is being turned into taxable property. I don’t care what tax breaks they are given, some is better than none. Apartment dwellers spend money. Retail generates sales tax.

I lived through Grimm’s hole. Nigro and Richman aren’t Grimm, they wouldn’t even be this far down the road unless they were committed.

#12, It wasn’t Grimm”s hole. Grimm came in and filled the hole when the 3 preceding developers could not come up with the financing. The hole came into existence when the city got millions of $$ from the government to tear down and make the space shovel ready. When 3 different attempts were made to gain financing, the city turned to Grimm, one of two local businessmen who had come up with alternative plans to fill the hole. A disclaimer, I have NO connection to the Grimms. That being said, I always feel badly that Grimm gets the blame for what happened downtown. It all went south 4-5 years before he entered the picture.
I too lived through it and also have had the opportunity to read the papers of Dick Devane and the Uncle Sam Mall corporation. It is a sad saga and that is why I stated in my first post that I worry when they say the financing is not in place. We have gone down that route already.

I really like the plan. I’m concerned that there is insufficient parking. 140 spots for 106 apartments plus retail doesn’t sound like enough. I’m curious how the number of spots was calculated. Is it what will fit or what is needed? Parking in downtown is bad enough as it is.

We can get the raw end of the deal… trust me we can. Has anyone come up with how they’ll pay for the extra workers to maintain this site (snow removal for example)? If they decide to hire more people that’s great, but those tax breaks you don’t care about won’t cover that cost, we will. Also the nontaxable property you speak of was essentially being used free of charge until the mayor moved city hall out of it into a building that we have to pay for. All I’m saying is that this deal needs to be supervised. There are a few folks who stand to make a lot of money here, and a great many taxpayers who don’t.

As for the retail: if the price per square foot is too high only chains can afford it, then there’s the potential that they’ll work to drive the locally owned businesses (who have largely been responsible for what progress has been made) out of town. Also, will this center compete with the retail being created over on Congress? That’s an awful lot of raw space coming on the market. Theoretically that should drive the prices down, but not if the construction costs have to be covered.

Renters do spend money, but only if there are any. They sounded a bit wishy washy as to the details on who exactly will rent these apartments: they said something like “single people mostly, also married couples and people living together” ummmmm that’s darn near everyone I can think of. What studies are they sighting?

So elmer, in response to your comments, we can in fact get royally worked over. Having said that I’m actually all for the project, especially if the city moves city hall back downtown. I think there’s great potential here, and I really really like that they chose a design that wasn’t overly ostentatious.

@Mark Menard: The parking should be sufficient. If this truly is the beginning of a development boom, some of the incoming renters will likely find that they don’t need to own a car.

When you say that there isn’t enough parking in downtown Troy, do you mean all parking or simply free parking? If it’s the latter, I would respond that free parking for visitors shouldn’t be a guarantee in downtown areas. Granted, it does make it difficult to attract customers if they can’t park anywhere, but reasonable metering and permit systems are fair.

As a side note, it would be quite beneficial if we had Zipcar franchises (or a similar carsharing company) in Albany, Troy, Schenectady, and Saratoga. I think a significant number of urban car owners would be willing to forgo car ownership as long as they had access to a shared vehicle when they needed it.

I disagree with the people who are against the design. It incorporates the old industrial style of 5-6 floor brick buildings with tall rows of glass windows, but with a more modern look. They definitely embraced Troy’s industrial architecture that lines the riverfront.

As the owner of Clark+Walker Studio on the corner of River and 1st Street, I like the design and overall plan. I think connecting the Riverfront to the city and capitalizing on that makes a ton of sense, and something they should be pushing for (and it sounds like they will). However I have 2 concerns here:

1. What good is having a gorgeous waterfront… if you don’t have any docks?! Build a waterfront park and put up a bunch of restaurants on the water and then don’t give anyone access to the water. They show a bunch of photos with boats swirling around the new buildings but what if the boaters want to get off and have dinner and shop? I might dock a boat there for us to use and for our team to use if they had docks… sounds like they want to take advantage of the riverfront but they haven’t thought it all the way through.

2. PARKING! My gosh parking is such a problem for downtown business in Troy. It’s THE reason we have started to look to leave Troy. We do not want too, we really don’t, but there’s nowhere to park. And I’m not even referring to trying to bring in customers. Even as business owners we have nowhere to park, and our employees have no where to park. The permit lots are all full with a waiting list! Instead we all have to drive around every 90 minutes fingers crossed that someone else is moving their car at the same time. Honestly it’s ridiculous. They need twice the parking they have now, and they just added Empire State College to the entire 3rd floor of the Rice Building which made a ton more cars in the area. Now you are going to add all those condos and restaurants and foot traffic but only 100 parking spots? Shoot it might be easier to find a spot in Manhattan by the time they are done.

Now that is a great look. I have been on Broadway next to Clement’s Frame shop for over 50 years, (practically born there) and the change in view looks really nice. A modern look yet fitting in a lot better than that concrete box with windows. And Jack Nigro is not a bad fellow either. Good family. I hope to survive in my small store to see this to completion. Keep up the good work bid folks.
RFR.

Kurt, I mean Clem…. what are you talking about? Hiring more people, snow removal? What do you think this project is, Battery City? FYI, if you stopped getting your information from Billy D. and read the facts, the property will be owned and maintained by the developers. Lookit you all putting this down. You want Troy to thrive, but only if a democrat comes up with the ideas……
JAY

A note to Tom Haverford concerning the “look” of the building. The developers have selected the architectural firm of FXFowle, one of the better firms in the northeast. When proposals are put together in response to an RFP such as this one, a great deal of time and effort are spent in coming up with the mix of uses (the program), the budget, and the effort to assure that the overall planning is within the budget. Not a great deal if time is then left to deal with the aesthetics. I trust the architects, once the project is in development, to refine both the planning and the building facades.

I would add that I agree the the overall parking problem needs to be addressed. Downtown Troy is a jumble of spaces and lots, – most of which are reserved for those who work downtown. This provides very limited options for those who want to patronise downtown businesses.

Looks great, like the extension of B’way to the water, it updates the downtown area beautifully, except for one important detail. A small marina/dock area to allow access to the city will make it the perfect plan. Thousands of regional and international boaters can enter this very inviting portal into the city by docking there. Many times all docks are full down on the water and boats move on ahead. Another dock will attract more visits.

Let’s not forget that the Nigro Companies left a gaping hole at the corner of Rt 4&43 (@Exit 8). When they couldn’t get that project financed they sold it off to another developer who put in a parking lot & light poles, and nothing else. Ugly.